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Leave Inspired is a source of ideas, a repository of techniques, and the perfect tool for providing inspiration for all forms of creative work.Sun, 08 Aug 2010 05:33:41 +0000enhourly1How Not to Design an Olympic Mascothttp://leaveinspired.com/2010/07/23/how-not-to-design-an-olympic-mascot/
http://leaveinspired.com/2010/07/23/how-not-to-design-an-olympic-mascot/#commentsSat, 24 Jul 2010 01:29:35 +0000Ryan Moorehttp://leaveinspired.com/?p=187

Alright, I know that the bulk of the hysteria over the atrocious London 2012 Olympic mascots was some time ago, but I just have to get this out of my system. If you’re not familiar with them by now, they go by the names “Wenlock” and “Mandeville”, after two British towns. Apparently created “from the last two drops of British steel used for the London 2012 Olympic Stadium”, they are basically two lumps of metal vaguely shaped like chess pieces or something. If you really want to know more about them, here’s their “About” page on the Olympic mascot site.

Backstory

Now, you’d think that a pair of Olympic mascots (especially ones as awkward as these) would have to have a pretty good story behind them to make them into loveable, huggable characters such as Miga or Quatchi (who admittedly don’t have the greatest backstory, but aren’t frightening to young children like these two are). However, you’d be disappointed.

As this video from the mascot committee explains, Wenlock and Mandeville are two cold, dead lumps of steel carved and welded into small figurines by an old guy with an eerily large head. They are then somehow brought to life by a magical rainbow. After being zapped like politically correct clones of Frankenstein, they proceed to frolic around the room and somehow develop a deep, profound connection with the children in about 30 seconds. Then, they suddenly decide to leave and run off on separate rainbows.

Huh?

Appearance

Photo by Julian Finney

As you can see, they both have the first letter of their name on their forehead, which is a good thing because otherwise nobody would be able to tell them apart. Other than the letter, the only differentiating details between them are a slightly different eye and head shape, and different colourings. Also, Mandeville appears to have wet himself.

The lettering on their heads apparently represents the signs in London taxis. While this makes sense, the rest of the symbology is not as obvious. For example, their eyes are apparently shaped like camera lenses, to allow them to “examine and record the experiences” they have on their journey through the UK. I found the gigantic eye creepy enough before I knew it would be recording everything I did. Then again, with the proliferation of CCTV security cameras in the UK, perhaps it is a fitting metaphor. These mascots may go over well with young children, but the majority of people who are watching the games will be less than impressed with what they see.

Design

Wenlock and Mandeville are perfect examples of what NOT to do when developing a mascot, character, or pretty much anything meant for the public eye.

1) DON‘T try to please everyone. By not picking a specific audience and instead trying to incorporate a bit of everything that popped into the creative designer’s brain at the moment, these mascots became the vaguely-defined lumps of metal and/or plastic that we will be seeing on TV in about two years. Ugh.

2) Make sure you use a test audience. A piece of work, no matter how good you think it is, could always use a second opinion. It could be a focus group, your coworkers, a friend, your mom, or even your dog (well, maybe not). Judging by their generally negative worldwide reception, not enough testing and tweaking of the characters occurred. Had more time been taken to refine these mascots and had they not only targeted young children, the mascots might not have turned out looking like mutant chess pieces.

All in all, the London 2012 mascots are quite a miserable waste of marketing dollars. The only group they generally appeal to are young children (and even then, most of them are probably scared of THE EYE).

Typography is one of the most important aspects of design that can transform simple text into work of elegance. By using programs like Photoshop or Cinema 4D, an ordinary font can become vibrant, expressive and exciting. In this article, I have collected 20 beautiful examples of type treatments to provide you inspiration. The use of color, dimension and texture are professionally used by the designers to create rich works of art with merit.

Calligraphy is the art of using lettering or words to create harmonious and expressive images. Although calligraphy can be created with Western languages, it is both most common and most well-known in Eastern languages, such as Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, or Korean. Below are a series of calligraphic images in Korean. I find these works particularly interesting because of their simplicity. Most of them use only black, white, and one other color, or none at all. This lack of visual complexity allows the viewer to look deeper into the meaning of the piece, and find thought-provoking details.

History

Korean calligraphy has an ancient history of tradition and expression. As an art form, it began to emerge during Korea’s Three Kingdoms era (100BC -668CE). It was used as a form of mental exercise amongst upper-class Korean men and philosophers. Even though the Korean language was fully developed, Chinese characters were common in Korean calligraphy until the early 1800′s. Sadly, war with Japan destroyed many of Korea’s greatest art treasures, and only a handful of calligraphic pieces survived.

Artistic Qualities

Calligraphy is commonly created with a pen and/or a brush dipped in black ink. The appearance of ink brushed on parchment is universally aesthetically pleasing. It has a basic, natural feel, and is soothing to look at. The combination of rough and smooth edges where brush strokes start and end create a naturalistic look and accentuate the simplicity of the piece. In addition, the angled brush strokes can make the lettering come alive, lending a feeling of flow and motion to static images. Looking at calligraphy, one can almost see the brush touching the paper in their mind. Korean calligraphy in particular is often about nature, with characters representing different natural objects. A calligrapher makes these objects dance and come to life.

Examples

Conclusion

The simplicity and feeling of movement in calligraphy creates beautiful, naturalistic work. Using universal ideas such as hand-lettering, large amounts of white space, and a limited colour scheme, one can make their work stand out and become something truly special.

All examples on this page belong to their respective owners. Source links are contained in the images.